Is it true that the Pure Classic Portuguese is delayed?

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I read somewhere that according to an American AD the delay would be about a year. He told this to a client who had ordered one. The reason would be that IWC is not satisfied with the Piaget movement. This of course would be a bummer for those here at the forum who have ordered one.

Would IWC because of this develop an own, flat hand-wound movement? This would be great, an in-house movement would make the watch a bit more IWC. But unless development of such a movement has already started, I guess it would take more than a year from now to produce such a movement.

Kind regards,Paul

What you do may not be so important, but it is very important that you do it well. (my variation of a saying by Gandhi)

I'm checking but so far I don't believe it is correct. I suspect that the person ordered from a "regular" dealer who didn't realize that the first (and perhaps only) allocations were to boutiques. A lot of Internet rumors spread too quickly and unfortunately. One salesperson at one dealership can create a whole series of issues when repeated on the Net.

To my knowledge, it wasn't true two months ago, but I am checking further with IWC.

david r. Wrote: They probably would not have done that if there was a quality issue.

While I am checking but still believe the watch is scheduled for delivery shortly, there may be a kernel of truth in the rumor. Ultra-thin movements have a reputation of being finicky, and the Piaget ultra-thins have does have a reputation, at least historically, of being among the most finicky of the finicky (the other true ultra-thins primarily are by JLC, Vacheron, Patek and F. Piguet). I mentioned this to one of the technical people at IWC and he was suprised to hear this, but the thin plates/compressed gear trains do have some adjustment and stability issues.

Often that's why thick movements are the best timekeepers, all other factors being equal. But since true ultra-thins do not have subsidiary or central seconds, the issues often are minimized as a practical matter.

Any results, information from IWC? I would think that a simple confirmation or denial of the statement of the AD wouldn't be so difficult. I read about it on different places: killing a rumor, if any, would be great for all. Someone who ordered the watch was not too pleased about it, the pleasure on the watch was deminished because of the possible weakness of the Piaget movement.

Kind regards,Paul

What you do may not be so important, but it is very important that you do it well. (my variation of a saying by Gandhi)

I just heard from Switzerland. The Pure Classic will be delayed due to a "reworking". I do not have all technical details of what that involves --whether it is case or dial design, or movement. I believe that there will be movement modifications, but I do not know yet whether the same base movement (from Piaget) will be used. In other words, I don't yet have a lot of details --except to say

1. the Pure Classic still will come out2. it's production and distribtion will be delayed

I saw an explanation by moderator Alexander Linz of the German forum, who got his information from the product manager of IWC.

The good news is that there is nothing wrong with the Piaget 380P movement in itself. While testing it thouroughly during previous stages it performed excellent. But when the first batch of movements arrived, a production error was discovered, and now I hope Google and I translate and interpret well: the bearing bores of the minute wheel were ever so slightly misaligned, causing the minute hand to maybe touch the glass. That of course was unacceptable, so the batch had to be returned. So IWC, and Piaget itself too, has to wait till the next, failure free batch of movements arrives.

Kind regards,Paul

What you do may not be so important, but it is very important that you do it well. (my variation of a saying by Gandhi)